Production of Light Nuclei and Hypernuclei in Heavy-Ion Collisions
Abstract
We review recent STAR and ALICE measurements of light-nucleus and hypernucleus yields, femtoscopic correlations, and collective flow presented at SQM 2026. Statistical-hadronization calculations provide a useful baseline for integrated yields but do not simultaneously describe all measured light-nucleus ratios across collision energies and system sizes. For bound states with mass number A<4, current coalescence calculations provide a broadly consistent description of yields, femtoscopic correlations, and collective flow, although the quantitative hypertriton comparison depends on the assumed few-body wave function. The suppressed production of resonant 4Li relative to compact 4He indicates an effect of nuclear structure and late-stage dynamics. However, the quantitative model comparison also depends on the treatment of feed-down from unstable states. In high-multiplicity p+p collisions, pion-deuteron femtoscopy further indicates that most observed (anti)deuterons are formed through nucleon fusion after strong decays of short-lived resonances. Taken together, these measurements show that production chronology and internal nuclear structure leave measurable imprints on the physics observables.
Related
- Sequential Clusterization of Light Nuclei and Hypernuclei in Heavy-Ion Collisions within a Wigner Function Coalescence Framework
- Light anti-nuclei in pp collisions at the LHC: production by coalescence and interaction of anti-nucleons
- Light (anti)nuclei production via coalescence in electron-proton collisions: from HERA to EIC
- Theoretical Review on Bulk Properties and Light/Strange Hadron Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions
- Nonthermal coalescence parameter of light nuclei production in pp collisions at LHC energies
BibTeX
@misc{xie2026production,
title = {{Production of Light Nuclei and Hypernuclei in Heavy-Ion Collisions}},
author = {Guannan Xie and Yue-Hang Leung},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.10963},
eprint = {2609.10963},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10963},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Production of Light Nuclei and Hypernuclei in Heavy-Ion Collisions
AU - Guannan Xie
AU - Yue-Hang Leung
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/10
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.10963
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10963
AB - We review recent STAR and ALICE measurements of light-nucleus and hypernucleus yields, femtoscopic correlations, and collective flow presented at SQM 2026. Statistical-hadronization calculations provide a useful baseline for integrated yields but do not simultaneously describe all measured light-nucleus ratios across collision energies and system sizes. For bound states with mass number A<4, current coalescence calculations provide a broadly consistent description of yields, femtoscopic correlations, and collective flow, although the quantitative hypertriton comparison depends on the assumed few-body wave function. The suppressed production of resonant ^4Li relative to compact ^4He indicates an effect of nuclear structure and late-stage dynamics. However, the quantitative model comparison also depends on the treatment of feed-down from unstable states. In high-multiplicity p+p collisions, pion-deuteron femtoscopy further indicates that most observed (anti)deuterons are formed through nucleon fusion after strong decays of short-lived resonances. Taken together, these measurements show that production chronology and internal nuclear structure leave measurable imprints on the physics observables.
ER -